I knew the brothers of Dartmouth's Sigma Alpha Epsilon as having a taste for pastel critter pants, not sadism.

Andrew Lohse's college career ended traumatically: He hurled a plastic folding chair at a Dartmouth security officer following a night of heavy drinking and drug use. For Mr. Lohse, it was a cathartic event. "Sometimes I just have these, uh, fits of existential rebellion. Whatever," he writes in his memoir. In his telling, what had really been terrifying was the beginning of his time on campus. There had been a homecoming parade to welcome freshmen to campus. Mr. Lohse and his new classmates were "marched up South Main Street like prisoners of war" to meet "the president and high priests and...